Barter (Rowland)/Part 5

by Henry C. Rowland

The Evangeline Had Been a Waif Ship Since Sliding Out of the Stocks. She Had Been Built for a Two-Masted Schooner Auxiliary Seiner

XXIII

WITH sail, a strong, dependable motor and fine clear weather, it is not difficult for a fairly good navigator to reckon closely the time of his arrival in or off a port. Besides, the depth shoals quickly from about three hundred fathoms to forty on the curve eighteen miles off the Romano River, and there was Bonacca Key, thirty miles offshore, and the lights on Roatan Island and Cape Honduras to make our landfall.

Having therefore assured Allaire that she might safely count on me to keep her date without making her Central American beau impatient or any risk on her part of getting arrested for loitering around the lamp-post, I could not understand her nervousness as we drew in on the coast. Right here it was safe, out of the hurricane season, though a fearful mess of reefs and keys and shoals to the eastward, all the way down to the end of Nicaragua, the dreaded Mosquito Coast, so named not for these insects in which it is no more rich than adjoining regions but from the look of the chart.

“What's the matter with you?” I asked her. “One might think that you were planning to elope with this Honduran progenitor. If you are, you had better think twice before becoming the stepmother of his eleven yellow kids and the stepladder of his political ambitions.”

“What would you care?” she snapped, and gave me a hostile look from her tawny eyes.

“More than you may think. I deplore your methods, but I've always had a strong desire to annex you some day as a sparring partner.”

“You've been drinking some of that cane rum that Sanders brought off for the other beasts of the field,” Allaire snapped.

“I haven't, and I'm not a beast of the field, unless it's the green field of the sea. But long night sea watches induce wide imaginings, and you have fallen within the spread of mine. I would like to set Mrs. Fairchild and Cyril ashore somewhere, in a good spot where they could build up a growing business, and sail off with you and Pompey and Mcintosh.”

Allaire gave me a lambent look.

“Are you going crazy, Pom? It hasn't been so hot.”

“No, I'm getting back where I belong, coming to life again. The family crash left me partly dead and the boiler factory nearly finished it. I'm like a poor fish stunned by a submarine blast. If not killed, he floats around for a while, then begins to flip his fins again.”

“But don't you realize what rot you're talking?”

“Not yet. I'm only telling you how I'm beginning to feel. It's worth a lot to a man who's been through what I have to be able to feel at all I do, and I rather glory in my shame.”

She looked at me curiously

“Where's the shame?”

“Because it amounts to that for a man of my breed to want a girl of yours without the slightest element of love attached to it, as if I were that beast of the field you called me.”

“So that's the way you think about me,” said Allaire.

“Precisely. Why not? You are beautiful and intelligent and high spirited. Since I am beginning to recover consciousness from a long series cf concussions, my opening eyes sight on you at close range. So I sit up and take notice.”

“But only of a physical sort,” Allaire murmured, with her cool little smile.

“By no means. Your mental attributes provoke the same desire for conquest. You see, it isn't humanly possible for a man to love a woman who continually befools him, but that needn't interfere with his wanting to master her.”

“Yes, I suppose men are like that. Nick Sayles doesn't seem to care two sous whether I love him or not, if only I'll marry him.”

“That's the effect you have on men, Allaire. You are so cool and competent that it kills any protective tenderness. You make me feel less like safeguarding you and smoothing your path lest you bruise your foot against a stone than tying you to my stirrup leather by your thick yellow braids.”

“How long have you harbored these soft sentiments, Pom?”

“Since you began to demonstrate your high percentage of efficiency. Before that I felt the sort of brotherly chivalry and solicitude that might be expected in a man of your own class.”

“Well”—Allaire sighed—“it seems a pity that it wasn't a more robust sentiment. Still, I'm not sure but that I prefer respect and smoldering passion to brotherly concern. This fraternal feeling is about the final injury where there is no blood kin. I'd rather like to see you in the rôle of sea sheik.”

“Perhaps you may. I'd have two things in my favor. One that you invite such treatment, and the other that you would not holler for help to the Army and Navy and Federal authorities. You might calmly put a bullet through me at the first chance, but furnish full-page sensational reading for the Sunday supplements you would not.”

“Speaking of bullets,” said Allaire, “and to get back to possibilities, are you and Cyril armed?”

“Yes; we've got our automatics.”

“So have I. You can never tell about these people in their own waters. The performing jaguar in Washington might be the jungle beast down here. Our Government is a bit slack with its citizens who start something they've no business to in foreign parts.”

“Is that what's making you so nervous, or are you still holding something back?”

“What is there to hold back? I do believe that Gomez is hatching some sort of a coup d'état; but even if he puts it over, I've no intention at all of becoming Señora Presidente.”

“No, I don't think you would care for that. Here's a proposal for you, Allaire: Let's make all the money we can as decently as we can, then close out our interest with Cyril and Mrs. Fairchild and buy a little ship of our own and go trading on a less haphazard scale.” The answer to this proposition of mine came without the slightest hesitation, as if I had suggested something already thought out and decided on.

“You're on, Pom. I'll do that thing.”

“Sounds as if you had thought it over already,” I said.

“I have, I've studied it from every angle that comes within my scope. That's why I'm so anxious to make a killing now.” And she went on hurriedly, “Not that you could call it that exactly.”

“Then don't be so jumpy,” I said. “The job is not worth it.”

“There's another thing I've got on my mind, Pom. Gomez as good as told me he was coming back to start something. Well, his headquarters is in here where we're going. He will be needing supplies, and we've got all those quartermaster's stores down below. There are two tiers, with one hundred and twenty cases to the tier.”

“Holy Moses, no wonder she's heavy!”

Here was another of Allaire's little mines. She had got these stores loaded aboard while Cyril and Mrs. Fairchild were down at Beach City and I had run up to New Haven for a few days' visit to my sister, married to a professor at Yale.

The cases were compactly stowed in the space beneath the flooring that ran the length of the schooner, so I had not bothered to overhaul them, thinking that there were perhaps a couple of dozen, and never suspecting ten times that number.

“So you've had this up your sleeve all the time?”

“Why, yes, Pom,” Allaire admitted. “I saw the chance of a good turnover.”

“Then we are actually at this moment a blockade runner,” I said.

“No, we aren't that until the show starts. We ought to be well away by then. This stuff was a good buy, and I figured that having it aboard could do no harm.”

“I get you, Allaire. Briefly, if Gomez decides to start his revolution he will want the stores. But if it has fallen through, or he's been double-crossed or anything, he will want to come aboard and beat it with his war chest. So you figured to make a deal coming or going.”

“Something of that sort,” Allaire admitted.

“Some little trader! Now we shall have to tell the others about this new bet—how you coppered the first.”

“Cyril knows. I made him promise not to tell for fear you would get cautious again.”

“Look here, are you trying to say I'm afraid?”

“No, but you haven't struck me as particularly venturesome. And there's another thing, Pom ——”

“There are several,” I growled. “It's not much of a game to carry contraband of war to a coast where something is due to pop and have no means of protecting your property.”

“You've said it, Pom. I thought of that, so I've got a one-pounder and a machine gun under the old sails in the lazaret. I think we had better get them mounted and try them out this afternoon.”

XXIV

SO HERE we were. a perfectly orthodox filibuster, masquerading as a yacht and everything. This tenderly bred but penniless erstwhile little sister of the rich had put one over on us, letting us in up to the gills. She was surely squaring her little score for our first deception.

There did not now seem much to do but carry on. Cyril and I were more excited and amused than angry, but Mrs. Fairchild was sore. All that prevented her insisting that we abandon the venture then and there was Cyril's assurance that until a state of revolution was actually proclaimed, no yacht could be seized or its owners penalized for coming inside the three-mile limit of a country with her hold full of stores. I told her also that it was legitimate for us to carry light ordnance for our protection against pirates and hijackers. She was not distinctly satisfied, and I felt sure that after this venture she would request to draw out her interest and retire from our syndicate. Allaire's methods were too sensational for the respectable Mrs. Fairchild, who also resented Cyril's unbounded admiration for the girl.

As a matter of fact, Cyril and Allaire were in perfect accord, while I sympathized with Mrs. Fairchild. The horrors of the boiler factory had made me conservative, and I did not want to risk landing up in any such job again.

Moreover, I believed in our prospects for legitimate barter, and wanted to give the scheme a fair tryout, and one in which sheer luck would not have to be the determining factor of a reasonable profit.

We mounted our light ordnance and tried both pieces on a target. Mrs. Fairchild watched moodily our gun practice. Allaire had told us evasively that she had got the weapons from a man recommended by a friend in Washington; Gomez himself, no doubt. They were secondhand, but seemed to be in excellent condition.

“I never counted on this sort of thing, Mr. Stirling,” Mrs. Fairchild said to me as Cyril and Allaire were practicing. “And she a New York society girl whose pictures I've admired in the papers time and again! Are there many like her?”

“There are probably a good many that would like to be that way,” I answered, “but few of them have the nerve and ability and incentive.”

“I wish you would marry her and take her in hand.”

“So do I, Mrs. Fairchild.”

“Well, I thought so. Do you think you could rule her?”

“I don't like to boast. The Bible says that he that ruleth himself is greater than he that taketh a city, but I've never taken a city so far.”

She laughed. Mrs. Fairchild was good-humored when let. But for one thing she had a perfectly well-ordered mind, and this was now sufficiently harassed because she was half in love with Cyril and ashamed of it, being some four or five years his senior. That need not have bothered a pretty woman of her type, that ages slowly, but the contrast with her late elderly sea-captain husband affected her accurate sense of proportion.

This and Allaire's maneuvers upset her. If Allaire had been merely high-handed and impetuous it would not have mattered so much; but the girl's cool, well-considered methods were disturbing. There was also a cutting edge to her friendliness, not snobbish but of a superiority so self-evident as to require no insisting on, as if Mrs. Fairchild were Allaire's esteemed and competent and well-paid housekeeper. And Cyril's British acceptance of such a relationship was an added thorn in the flesh. Mrs. Fairchild hailed originally from the state of Maine, and her Yankee independence very properly declined the slightest humbling of herself.

I felt that something was in the wind, and sure enough as Pompey was serving us our supper it blew up.

“Miss Forsyth will wind up by being a pirate if she doesn't mind her step,” said Mrs. Fairchild. “All this looks too much like it to suit my taste.”

“Wait until we divide the plunder, Mrs. Fairchild,” said Allaire, with a gleam of malice in her tawny eyes.

“Well, when that happy day comes I don't mind saying that I shall quit the sea. I'd like to invest my share in a nice little notion store at some of these winter resorts.”

“Why not Bermuda”—he pronounced it Bare-mooda—“Mrs. Fairchild?” Cyril asked, “That's a better climate, and more American than British.”

The poor woman looked so confused that I guessed this suggestion to be no new idea, and came to her rescue.

“If you and Cyril ever come to feel like pooling your capital for something of that sort,” I said directly, “don't hesitate to do so. Miss Forsyth and I like this sort of thing and may carry out the idea of a bigger ship and trading on a more extended scale.”

Mrs. Fairchild gave me a grateful look.

“Who's going to chaperon you?” she asked. Allaire laughed.

“Business women don't need chaperons, especially when one turns adventuress.”

“Now, Miss Forsyth ——”

“But that's precisely what I am,” said Allaire. “Why bother with the smoke screen when you go gold digging? I was all the afternoon alone with Nick Sayles in the cabin of his yacht, selling him an island; and Pom's safer than Nick Sayles. The motto on Pom's signet ring is Honor First. I thought for a while that perhaps it might better be Safety First, but perhaps I was unjust.”

Cyril looked a little scared. Then, fixing his lustrous eyes on Allaire, he said softly, “The two might mean the same thing, Miss Forsyth, if the safety applied to a young lady who was in the care of an officer and gentleman.”

Allaire laughed.

“Good for you, Cyril. I'm answered. So is Mrs. Fairchild. Why a chaperon when you've got a Pom? [If anything happens, they bark.”

“Yes,” I said, “and they give cats a wide berth. But I might not be that sort of dog. The Pom part of my name isn't the half of it. Since you are asking for trouble, I'll warn you right now that if ever you find yourself shipmates alone with me, I'll show you something in the nature of a throwback to the parent stock of canines.”

“That's the talk, Mr. Stirling,” said Mrs. Fairchild. “My first voyage with Captain Fairchild was to Buenos Aires. We had a young mate named Basset that blushed every time I spoke to him. I was only eighteen and—and ——” She began to blush herself.

“—— pretty, as you always will be,” Allaire supplied, “and I suppose you liked to make him blush.”

“Most young girls have their silly streak, Miss Forsyth. I'm only telling you this as a sort of object lesson not to torment a good man.

“One night my husband went over to a captains' party aboard a British sailing ship. I knew that lime juice wouldn't be the only thing served, and I was worried, because my husband, though a good man as men go, sometimes took a bit too much when his responsibility was over. Mr. Basset—he was only a boy—was aboard in charge of the ship and me. A boat came alongside and a man sang out that Captain Fairchild had had an accident and his wife had better come right over. Mr. Basset was for going with me, but I told him he had better stop aboard. So I got into the boat and we pulled off into the dark toward the square-rigger, and the next I knew my head was in a sack, and then I didn't know anything at all.”

Allaire leaned forward.

“What ——”

“Don't interrupt,” I said.

Illustration (unusable): She Came Up Then, Taking Shape Out of the Purple Murk, a Bulky Little Tub Under Sail in the Paint Cool Draft That Struck Down Off the Mountains Back From the Coast

“I came to in the cabin of a stuffy little steamboat. A beast of a man was bathing my face with eau de Cologne. I never could abide the smell of it since. Then a terrible fight started on deck. I heard Basset roaring out curses, and he was Salvation Army ashore. It sounded like he was singing psalms while he fought. The man in there with me grabbed up a revolver and rushed on deck. There was a lot of firing and yelling. Then the engine stopped and I managed to get up on deck. I hadn't been hurt.”

Mrs. Fairchild leaned forward and laid her hand on Allaire's wrist.

“They were all dead but Basset. The little steamboat was in the mouth of the Uruguay. The man who owned her was a planter, and Captain Fairchild had knocked him down the day before because he stared at me in a café and said something. Mr. Basset had swum over to the boat. He suspected something after I had gone. He died the next day.”

We were all silent. Then Mrs. Fairchild said softly, “My husband used to joke about his name. Said it fitted him because he was that kind of dog.”

“Basset hound,” I murmured.

“Yes; but it was a good strain. Your speaking of a Pom—Pomeranian, isn't it?—reminded me.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Fairchild,” Allaire said softly, and pressed the small firm hand under hers.

Hew little we can tell about people—the tragedies, terrible experiences of what impress us as being humdrum bourgeois lives; this fragmentary human document cropping out like a news clipping of some episode suppressed for the sake of one's peace of mind!

I went up to relieve the wheel. Allaire joined me a few minutes later

“That was a fearful story, Pom; she hated to tell it.”

“Yes. The dog feature was what forced it out. She felt it her duty.”

“Poor thing, she can't have had much happiness. She was eighteen when she married Captain Fairchild, and he was forty-five.”

“Well, that was seventeen years ago, and he's been dead a couple of years. A hard-boiled Yankee skipper, I should say; very much of a man, but too old for her and aged before bis time from work and worry. Let's hope she and Cyril hit it off. He's a good lad, Sort of a big, rangy, large-hearted, laughing, fighting Jew; avatar of a Phenician freebooting trader. The Nordic types haven't got it all. Too detached and gloomy and apt to be lacking in the joie de vivre.”

“Are you describing yourself, Pom?”

“I've learned something about my limitations; something of the skeleton in armor. It's dreary stuff. The Mediterraneans help it out. Why does anybody want to be always guarding the frontiers of race? Mixtures are best, where the blood is strong both sides.”

“You're waking fast, Pom.”

“Well, it's hard to keep on sleeping, with you setting off your firecrackers: I'll rouse up and get you some day, Allaire.”

“Then help to get some money first.”

“That's what I seem to be doing. Why so avaricious? Don't you like this?”

“Yes, so far. It beats mere yachting.”

“That's right. I never sat aboard a yacht and looked over a shabby working vessel without a tinge of envy. There's more real dignity in a tanker or collier lurching into port than in. the yacht of the man that owns the oil wells and coal mines to fill her up. And there's more dignity in a rum runner than in the gang aboard the houseboat drinking what she's managed to run.”

Allaire nodded.

“We are beginning to see things the same, Pom. I think I'd rather see my gentleman friend reach for his gat than for his bill folder. And women are even worse. They mouth their money when they pay your bill. It's like a noble blood transfusion.”

“All right, Allaire. You've given me my cue. From now on I get rough.”

“Not yet, Pom. Wait until we start with our own ship.”

“Will you marry me then?” I asked.

“Perhaps, if you make me. But I'm not giving you a dare. You have been pretty numb so far, not to say dumb. I'll wait until you get all alive from your feet up. Meantime let me run the brain end of it. I'm not quite sure about this Gomez person. His payments are apt to be the 'Think of the fun you're having,' unless he's closely watched.”

“Well, you talk to him and I'll watch him. If he tries to talk back ——”

“He can say it with money,” said Allaire.

XXV

WE PICKED up Bonacca Island to the westward at sunset, and an hour later the Cape Honduras Light made a needle point in the murky dark. It was one of those purple, plushy tropic nights when the stars are low and large, but not bright, and the visibility is high but baffling, with dimensions distorted.

The breeze dropped with the sun, so we approached the coast under power. The air was too heavy in atmosphere for us to see the mountains rising as they receded from the strip of low coast. I did not have a local large-scale chart, nor need it, for that matter; the one I had of the West Indies, Central America, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea being the most recent edition and a triumph of hydrography, as are all our government charts that serve friend and enemy, worthy and unworthy alike. Allaire came up as I stood by the fore shrouds staring into the plushy dark ahead.

“Great, Pom, isn't it?” she whispered.

“A pleasant evening for it,” I admitted. “I'll admire the scenery more on our way out. It's a cleaner business than rum running, anyhow.”

“Yes,” Allaire admitted. “It's a lot better to work in support of a decent foreign government than to undermine your own. I see it differently, now that I'm not so desperately hard up.”

“No doubt you know what you're doing, Allaire,” I said, “but for the life of me I can't see the sense of all this. If Gomez' supplies are for a secret military unit he is holding in reserve, why should he have to bring them so far and land them with such stealth? More than that, the quantity we've got is so piffling.”

“Well, you see, Pom, these political flare-ups are apt to be no more than a flash in the pan down here. The party that first scores by a sharp, sudden, unexpected blow is apt to get away with it. Gomez suspects something like this, so he is holding out a reserve force of a thousand picked men well armed and equipped to rush into Tegucigalpa at the crucial moment.”

“But what of it?” I persisted. “Haven't they got grub enough in this country without paying you to lug a few cases of beef and beans about eighteen hundred miles? It's a corn-and-cattle country. I can understand his wanting to have an American yacht owned by a girl with strong friends in Washington nice and handy for his getaway, if it comes to that, but these stores seem so trifling.”

“Oh, dear,” Allaire said plaintively, “I suppose now I'm in for another bawling out. But you may as well know. You might have guessed. They aren't pork and beans. They are first-class arms and ammunition.”

For a moment I stood there letting this sink in, feeling like the fool I was. Worse than that, since any average fool might have guessed, as Allaire said. Certainly, my experience of her methods should have taught me by this time that whatever else may have been said of them, they are not piker ones.

This also explained the nervousness that had puzzled me. It was one thing to come on the coast of a smoldering country with a small cargo of canned goods that we could claim to have bought at a sale against our own subsequent need, and another to be fairly deep with what is always contraband of war in the Western Hemisphere about everywhere south of the Tropic of Cancer.

“Well, what about it?” Allaire demanded. “Now that you know, are you going to back my game or play safe again?”

“Who paid for the stuff?” I asked.

“We went fifty-fifty, after a lot of polite wrangling. My argument was that he might not take it when I got it here, and his that I might never get it here. I would have dropped the business but for two things. His paying half made it almost like a present, since he drove such a bargain, and I learned enough in Washington to know that if it was left on my hands I might be able to find even a better market a little farther down the coast.”

“Costa Rica?”

“You are warm.... Aren't we getting in pretty close? I can see a big black mass back there.”

“Stand back!” I called aft to Cyril to reverse; then as our way was checked, I stepped up on the rail and holding the shroud in one hand took a sounding with the fisherman's lead, getting twenty fathoms.

“We've still got a few miles to go. Then if you connect with Gomez he is due to pay the other half, and how much for the freighting?”

“Ten thousand, gold.”

“Not so bad. What does your whole bill against him come to?”

“Twice that, on delivery. We got the rifles for a song, but the ammunition came high. If he fails to connect, the agreement provides that he stands the loss and the stuff is ours.”

“You must have inspired him with confidence in your abilities, Allaire.”

“Well, I manage to do that with most people but you. Is it all right, Pom?”

“Yes, with me. But I must tell Cyril.”

“He knows. He guessed we weren't running a huckster's cart or a taxi to Cuba. But don't tell Mrs. Fairchild. It's too late now.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “it's too late now. I'm going to drop my red lights over the bow in a moment. No use upsetting her.”

“That's what Cyril said. He is keen about it. I wish you were, Pom.”

“It's your holding out I most object to, Allaire. That's not good form in the case of partners like ourselves.”

“Well, who started it?”

“Yes, I know. We can never live that down, can we?”

“I'm not so sure, Pom. It's rankled a long while with me, because if there's any one thing I can't stand it's to be made a fool of. I'd rather be taken by force than by guile. I could forgive a bandit or burglar, but not a parlor grafter. I simply had to get even with you for calling me into Mrs. Fairchild's store that day and getting my boat for some kidding and a string of beads, letting me think you were going to be bold bad bootleggers of the Bahamas, when your real game was peddling junk.”

“Put that way, Allaire, I am left without a comeback; the more so, as every time you've caught your bet.”

“That's what worries me now, Pom. Luck like that can't last. Gomez is all right. He's a good sort and honest and ambitious. He wants to come back to Washington persona grata and be well received and give me a party if I am there and see fit to do him that honor, and invite the distinguished guests. I'm sure that if this yachting party of ours goes wrong he'd rather stand the loss than make an enemy of me. But that's not the game.”

“No,” I said, “that's not at all the game, because you are not really the intriguing adventuress that you state yourself.”

“Well, I had to make a diversion. I said whatever came into my head to keep you carrying on. It has taken a bit of doing too.”

“And if we swing it?” I asked.

“Then I'll call the slate clean and all bets paid. After that I'll tackle this trading scheme with you, if you like. It appealed to me from the very start, when you and Cyril first explained it. But for one thing, I was sore at the way you had fooled me; and besides, I saw that to work it properly we would need some capital.” She peered through the murk. “You can see the high ground now, Pom.”

“I see it. We'll slow down and get our lights over. The answering signal is the same?”

“Yes, and the danger signal the quick repeated flashing of a blinker. If we get that it means that everything's off. The trouble is we don't know what's been going on. I didn't dare let you run into Key West or Havana for fear some meddlesome pest might get curious about our stores.”

“How did you manage when remodeling inside?” I asked.

“The carpenters didn't have to get in under the saloon deck; and as we were merely taking the boat there from Palm Beach to get her dolled up as a yacht, nobody bothered to search her. Everybody was most kind and obliging.”

“I believe you,” I said. 'Let's hope they keep on being that way.”

XXVI

CYRIL all this time had been steering the course I had given him. Mrs. Fairchild was sitting on an after skylight, busy with some mending.

It must have been a little tough on Cyril, who knew what Allaire was up to and that she was now at confessional with me. He gave me an imploring look as I walked aft and took the wheel, but brightened when I told him to hang the red lanterns over the bows.

Scarcely had he done so when there came an answering signal, not from the shore but out abeam. I stopped the motor and we lay drifting, about a mile from the beach, to judge from the last sounding. Our signal had evidently been answered by a boat that was hanging on and off.

She came up then, taking shape out of the purple murk, a bulky little tub under sail in the faint cool draft that struck down off the mountains back from the coast. Looming suddenly close aboard and under steerage way with no riffle of breeze on the water, she reminded me of these barks depicted in imaginative paintings, wafted along by a propulsive force that appears to be entirely in the mind of the artist.

“What boat is that?” I asked in English.

The answer came immediately:

“The boat of Señor Gomez, waiting for you, sir.”

Allaire whispered, “That's not Gomez speaking, though it sounds. like his voice.” She raised her own: “Is Señor Gomez aboard?”

“No, madam, the señor was detained. But he has sent me to meet you. I am coming alongside.”

“Look!”

Allaire gripped me by the arm. But I had already seen the danger signal. Over there against the deep purple background, high up above the coast line, a blinker was flashing quick intermittent lights.

XXVII

IT WAS too late to profit by this warning. The big hulk that had so suddenly materialized out of the murk was already gliding up on our quarter. There must have been a strong draft of air aloft, as the surface was without a ripple. Before Cyril could have jumped below to start the motor, this tub would barge into us. From the way she was drifting in on us we were due to get a solid bump.

Cyril, standing by amidships with a roller fender, had not seen the flickering torch back there in the gloom. Neither had Mrs. Fairchild. It had not been flashed until this wind scow was almost alongside, and its message had not lasted more than five seconds. Whether it had been noticed or not aboard the approaching boat, I could not say; but it seemed improbable, as all eyes must have been fastened on ourselves. And there was always the possibility that it was not intended for our danger signal after all.

I did not therefore take the only step for which there might have been time in our defense—throw the tarpaulin off the machine gun in the waist and try to keep this crowd from boarding us. Even that could scarcely have been managed, as there were a dozen or more grouped all over a deck about the size of our own. There was not enough to warrant the starting of a massacre. We were not yet sure that this was a hostile party, nor could we guess at its intentions. The voice answering my hail had been a cultivated one, speaking in English scarcely accented.

Nevertheless, I was to blame for one stupid error—my having stopped the motor. I should have kept it running slowly, thrown out of gear until we had made sure. The response to my signal of identity, the fact that we were expecting to be met in just this fashion for the transshipping of the munitions, and the absence of any warning flashed, or the delay of this, ought not to have been enough to permit of my falling into such a trap. Then, as the lumbering craft ground clumsily alongside with a weight that heeled us with a jar, I discovered her people to be all armed. They came swarming aboard, and a tall young man in some sort of uniform walked up to where I stood by the wheel, Allaire at my elbow. He saluted politely.

“Miss Forsyth, I believe?”

“Yes.”

“Permit me to present myself. I am Colonel Maduro, chief intelligence officer of this country, in the political affairs of which you have seen fit to interest yourself. It has been reported to me by my agents that you were on your way to our coast with a cargo of arms and ammunition.”

“That is true,” said Allaire calmly enough.

“Then it must be evident to you, Miss Forsyth, that since you are within our territorial zone, I shall be entirely within my right to confiscate your yacht pending an Official inquiry. Military supplies are just as much contraband here as are alcoholic liquors in your own great country.”

“I am scarcely in a position to contest that, colonel,” said Allaire.

“It is most unfortunate and embarrassing,” the colonel answered. “I am informed that you are a young lady of position, with many influential friends in Washington. In such a case as this they would of course be powerless to save your yacht for you, under the reading of international law.”

“I should not ask them to,” Allaire said. “The only point on which I shall insist is that this seizure is a duly authorized official one.”

“There can be no question of that, Miss Forsyth. But for certain diplomatic reasons, we should much prefer at this moment not to enter into any altercation at all with the United States. We do not want a scandal attached to the name of a hitherto respected compatriot who has represented our country in a commercial way in yours. I have therefore the honor to make you what you must admit yourself to be a very lenient disposition of your case.”

“I think that I can guess it, colonel,” said Allaire.

He laughed.

“Well, you Americans are shrewd guessers. After all, you are a good sport, if you don't mind my saying so. You have played a risky game and lost. So what if I take off your contraband, then let you go your way in peace, and no more said?”

Allaire turned to me.

“What do you think, Pom?”

“I think,” I said, “that Señor Gomez has double-crossed you.”

“It does look that way,” she admitted. “”I should say that he flashed that danger signal when he knew that it was too late to do us any good.”

“No doubt in answer to one flashed off this boat alongside,” I said.

The youthful colonel made a gesture of protest.

“I beg to assure you that you are entirely wrong. Although Señor Gomez and I happen to be political opponents, I have every respect for his personal honor.”

“Why shouldn't you,” Allaire cut in, “since he happens to be your father?”

This shot went home with stunning force. The young man stared at her in dismay. He was spared the pain of denying the parentage, for Allaire followed up her hand grenade by going rapidly on:

“Your voice alone is enough, even if Señor Gomez had not shown me one day a photograph of his three sons by his first marriage. Your name is William McKinley Gomez and you graduated from Harvard five years ago.”

My word, but Allaire surely carried a few torpedoes about her person, and she had not exhausted her supply on me. But this young officer was not unprovided with a bombproof of sorts, and he now said from its shelter:

“You are uncommonly keen, Miss Forsyth. What you say is partly true. It's on account of the relationship that I want to hush this thing up. But it is not true that my father has double-crossed you. He is the soul of honor and meant to give you a square deal. But it just happens that he and I are on different sides of the political fence down here. That happens in the best of families. It was frequent, I believe, in your own Civil War. I've got him collared back there. If he sent you a signal, then he must have managed to give his guard the slip for a second or two. I didn't see it.”

“Very well,” Allaire answered indifferently. “I'll take your word for it. But I decline flatly to accept your terms. You can take us into port as a prize. It will make a good story for our Sunday supplements—Central American Filibustering New Society Sport. Miss Allaire Forsyth, Well Known in New York and Washington Social Circles, Turns Her Yacht into Gun Runner. Duped by Two Well-Known Pan-Americans. Tricked into Carrying Arms by Papa Gomez, Who Enjoys the Entrée of High Officialdom at Washington, Then Hijacked by His Eldest Son, William McKinley Gomez, Harvard, 19——”

“Oh, stop!” wailed the colonel. “But how about yourself?”

“It can't hurt me,” Allaire said smoothly. “All my friends know that I've got to earn my living somehow. I'm duly chaperoned here aboard. But your father and you will be wanting to come to Washington again one of these days, and you wait and see what you'll get!”

“Isn't this a bit like blackmail, Miss Forsyth?”

Allaire laughed.

“Listen to the hold-up! I shan't give the newspaper syndicate any more than what I know to be the facts. I meet a distinguished Central American diplomat and commercial agent, duly accredited by his country, at dinner in the house of a cabinet minister, and he persuades me to go fifty-fifty with him in the purchase of war munitions and running them in here aboard my yacht. Then his son, William McKinley, Harvard graduate, holds me up when I get here and offers to relieve me of my cargo and let me go. That's the truth, isn't it?”

“Yes; but ——”

“Well, I can't help what people may think, can I? And I can't help how the papers choose to illustrate the episode.”

“Oh, don't!” William McKinley threw up his hands. “They'd have you dragged out of your berth much décolleté by a uniformed horror who was mostly teeth, goatee, waxed mustache and glaring eyes, decorations and a monocle, and tripping over his cavalry saber.”

“And I displaying a plenitude of fulsome Midnight Folly charms,” Allaire went on maliciously. “Splendid for the entente cordiale between our countries, what, colonel? There's not a town, village or sawmill in the whole United States it wouldn't reach. And here's the point of the whole play, the clou to the pièce de théâtre—or opéra bouffe. All to bilk a girl of good position, who got tired of having her bills paid by her friends, out of a piker's twenty thousand dollars. That wouldn't help you in North America, colonel, and I don't think it would do you a tremendous lot of good in Central.”

“But hold on! I say, Miss Forsyth, I'm telling you the truth about not being in the same crowd with my father.”

“I believe you, colonel. But nobody else is going to; certainly not in my country, and I rather doubt in yours. So if you want to run us in, then go ahead and do it.”

The young man appeared turn the situation in his mind. His soldiers were grouped about the deck awaiting orders. Cyril was sitting on the rail smoking a cigarette, Mrs. Fairchild standing beside him, staring into the murk. Suddenly the colonel turned.

“Will you take my check for the twenty thousand for the munitions, Miss Forsyth? You can cash it tomorrow at the bank.

“No,” said Allaire promptly, “I won't.”

“Why not?”

“Because I believe what you've just told me about being in the party opposed to your father's, and that being case I don't mean to let him down. He has paid for half this stuff I've got aboard, and while I may be a filibuster, I am not a crook, colonel.”

The colonel bowed. “I beg to offer my apologies, Miss Forsyth.”

“I accept them in the spirit offered, colonel. Now couldn't you bring Señor Gomez out aboard? We might be able to come to some sort of agreement compatible with honor.”

He shook his head with a smile.

“Impossible, I'm afraid. Our conceptions of honor are the same, but those of politics quite different. My father is of the old conservative and I of the new and liberal. Even if I don't seize your stuff, I can't let you land it. So the only way out of it that I can see is for you to leave our more or less hospitable shores and get rid of your cargo the best you can and square yourself later with my father.”

“Then are we free to go?” Allaire asked.

“You are, Miss Forsyth. This must all seem a very ridiculous performance, but we are still a bit old-fashioned down here. I wish that I could go with you.”

“So do I, colonel. However, we may meet again under pleasanter circumstances. Please tell Señor Gomez that I do not blame him, considering the alertness of his son, and assure him that I shall serve his interests to the best of my ability.”

He bowed. There was a lot of old-time elegance about this boy.

“Then have I your parole to leave our coast and not to attempt the landing of your contraband?” he asked.

“You have, colonel. By the way, how about Costa Rica?”

This brought a burst of laughter.

“My word, but you are incorrigible! And I've been told that American girls were all flappers!”

“Not all. We've got our quota, though.”

“Look here!” The colonel became suddenly businesslike. “I don't want to mix into the family rows of neighbors, but I think that if you run to Puerto Limon, I may be able to get word to a man who would be glad to take your stuff off your hands, and with no great loss, You might even make a little.”

Allaire looked at me.

“How about it, captain?”

“We should have to take on fuel and stores and water first,” I said. “It's a run of six or seven hundred miles.”

“Well, why not do that here?” asked the colonel. “Enter tomorrow morning as an American yacht. I'll see that you're not bothered. Get what you need and then go out again. I'll have a man there to put a seal on your hold hatch and do a sentry go as long as you care to be our guests. Everything will be all right.”

“But all these men of yours,” Allaire objected.

“Oh, they be hanged! They don't count. They're just soldiers. You move offshore a bit and come in about an hour after sunrise. I'll be on the lookout for you. Meanwhile I'll get hold of father and we can all have dinner together tomorrow night at the club.”

Allaire leaned back against the wheel. She began to laugh.

“This—this more or less hospitable coast!”

“Chiefly more,” I observed.

XXVIII

“OPÉRA BOUFFE?” I said to Allaire an hour later, after Col. William McKinley Gomez had taken himself off in his big tub. “Well, perhaps. But there's something tremendously real and human about it, after all.”

“That's just it, Pom. We hard serious, almost tragic people of the North simply can't get these people down here; and they get us only in spots. Here we come filibustering, and now for no apparent reason we find ourselves invited and honored guests.”

“There's reason, fast enough,” I said, “and it's you. I believe a clever, well-bred woman can go anywhere and do anything she likes, provided she plays her game according to the best traditions of sex and character.”

“She can if she minds her step, and doesn't lose her head,” said Allaire. “Now perhaps you understand why I took so much pains to doll up this little ark of ours. Like putting on a Paris dress and a Grand Prix hat when you start out to do something a bit—businesslike.”

“And having a background that was painted in a few generations earlier,” I said. “Thank God, I resisted an impulse to man the machine gun when William bumped up alongside.”

“Yes, caution has its merit,” Allaire admitted. “I was worried for a second or two. If you had started something I should not have interfered. But it would have been a tragic shame. You see, Pom, the man who hasn't much faith in his own personal force, but is still a fighter, falls back on guns and things before he really needs to. It's a mixture of savagery and timidity.”

“Savagery is half timidity, anyhow,” I said, “The snarling beast is a frightened beast.”

“Well, I must say I snarled a little,” Allaire admitted. “But I've been round enough to know that the male animal can do with a bit of snarling at, when he knows that it's deserved.”

“Some stand it better when it's not deserved,” I said; “but the woman's answer to When does that happen? is Never.”

“It was the right dose for the colonel. His father had once told me about William's ambition to represent his country at Washington. And it's true that they don't agree politically.”

“William stole a march on papa somehow,” I said; “but now that we've given our parole, I suppose the deal's off.”

“'Fraid so,” Allaire said indifferently. “But don't despair. Guns are guns, and these are good modern ones. Papa Gomez's inability to take them off my hands at the time forfeits him his interest in them. I don't owe him a peso now, so I've got twice the bargain in in guns I had before tonight. But I didn't tell William that.”

“Do you mean to say that Gomez's claim is canceled?” I exclaimed.

“Absolutely. I stipulated that I was not to be kept loitering about, and I contracted to be here the night of the tenth. It was agreed that if I was more than twenty-four hours late I was to forfeit what I had paid for the arms, and if he was not on hand to receive them the night of the tenth he was to forfeit his share, if I so desired.”

“Then William's interference has cost his papa what he paid for the arms, and cost you the same, plus what you were to have got for their transport.”

“Yes; but the stuff is now all mine—ours. That was agreed upon in the event of Gomez failing me. I should say that some of papa's crowd double-crossed him to William. But the colonel hadn't counted on my spotting his identity.”

So ere we were in the absurd position of a filibuster to come in for luncheon on parole, then trusted to carry our mischievous cargo elsewhere. William would not let us down, since he could have taken our cargo away from us already if he had chosen, and Señor Gomez's hands were tied by his agreement with Allaire by which he was to forfeit his claim if he failed her, and because we could not deliver the consignment now in any case. Moreover, it seemed to me that we had the right to enter officially and with due formality in quest of fuel and stores, with whatever we might have aboard duly under seal for the time we remained in port.

So we loitered about for the rest of the night, moving offshore and then heading in respectably an hour after sunrise. Ostensibly we were an American yacht bound for California via the Panama Canal and calling for supplies and to make a brief visit.

Scarcely had we dropped anchor when the port authorities came alongside, with Colonel Gomez. He greeted us as old and valued friends, introduced the officials with him, who politely waived all formalities on his recognizance. No examination was made, no seal put on anything. The colonel gallantly presented Allaire with a hamper of wine. He assured us aside that our affair was known only to his father and himself; and that though the elder gentleman was very sore about the business, he still took the disappointment like a statesman and a sport.

Rather dazed by the turn of events, we merely played the part of polite and harmless foreign visitors. Then there came Papa Gomez himself, very handsome and immaculate. He was a distinguished personage and did not look his late middle age. If William had told him of our first suspicions, he made no reference to them. Allaire greeted him in most friendly fashion and presented the rest of us. She had explained to him in Washington the nature of our trading venture.

The colonel took Cyril and Mrs. Fairchild with him to see about our supplies. Señor Gomez and I seated ourselves under the after awning. Gomez then plunged into his apologies.

“This a ridiculous fiasco, Miss Forsyth. What must you think of me? My scamp of a son got wind of what I was up to and collared me just as I was shoving off with four of my men. I was furious, but bound to admit that he was acting within his duty. And new he tells me that he has taken your parole not to deliver the munitions that you have brought so far and at such risk and expense.”

“It was a choice between passing him our word or losing everything,” said Allaire. “And of course a parole is a parole.”

“Of course. Besides, it would scarcely be possible now to land the stuff. The risk would be too great. This is the trouble when members of the same family who hold each other in affection are political opponents. Outwardly, we are of the same party. But that, I fear, is shortly to divide into separate factions. Now what do you think I ought to do about our affair?”

“I'm sure I don't know, Señor Gomez,” said Allaire; “but I should say that our agreement provides for such a failure. It looks as if we should each have to stand the loss.”

“It is infuriating. Here are those munitions that you have paid half for and brought all this great distance right under our feet, and here am I with the money to pay the amount. But the chief value to me was to be in the fact that nobody knew of my having this resource in reserve. It would have filled my flush, to use a poker term. And what good is the stuff to you?”

“That's just the point,” Allaire murmured.

“Of course I forfeit my half of the price paid. I have no longer any claim. That was agreed on. We got a bargain in these rifles and machine guns and now they are all yours at half the purchase price, cheap enough to start with. But the question is, where are you to market your wares?”

I began to smell a rat, but took pains not to give evidence of any suspicious odor. Instead, I remarked casually, “It seems as if such goods ought always to have some speculative value along the shores of the Caribbean, even with no immediate use for them in sight.”

He beamed at me.

“That is the point. But where? As a person of honor, to say nothing of the grave risk you are restrained from disposing of them on this coast. William believes, of course, in your good faith; but he will keep a bright lookout, because, though have given your parole not to attempt to land them yourselves, that would not in honor bind you from disposing of them to some other party outside our domain who might be willing to take a chance on running them in.”

“I see,” Allaire murmured. “The difference between the rum runner lying outside the three-mile limit and the bootleggers who are his customers.”

“Well, in some sense, though a decenter business. Bad rum degenerates the country into which it is smuggled, whereas good weapons might be the means of its regeneration. An ethical point with which we need not concern ourselves. I feel very badly about all this, and do not want to see you lose all the profit that you had reason to count on. For my part, all I can do is to stand the disappointment and loss.”

The odor of this rat grew stronger. It seemed to me that Allaire's pretty nose, with its sensitive nostrils, showed signs of twitching.

But she answered evenly, “I'm afraid that we 'shall have to do the same, Señor Gomez.”

“But that is intolerable. If my affairs were not at this moment so involved, I should at least defray the half you paid. I have in fact promised to do that rather than see you suffer a considerable loss, but I tell you frankly that I would only be in a position to do so if we can manage to get through the next six months without any serious political disturbance in this little republic of ours. What I say is merely a protestation of friendship which you are to take for what it may seem worth to you. Meantime I have something more practical to suggest.”

He rose abruptly, a fine commanding figure of a man, neither fat nor lean, but trim and elegant and with a military air. Turning smartly, he pointed over across the charming bay, with its flanking mountain mass, to a two-masted schooner that I had already noticed particularly because of her easy graceful lines that were more those of a Gloucester fisherman than cargo carrier.

“You see that schooner? She is under the Costa Rican flag, but she was built at one of your Maine yards the last year of the war. Boothbay, I think it was. A splendid vessel and in A-1 condition, but that is neither here nor there. The point is that she has been losing money for her owner who is a good friend of mine. A Spanish Jew by origin and a delightful fellow named Arias. He is getting sick of it.” Señor Gomez looked round at us and smiled. “Jews don't mind spending money, but they dislike intensely to lose it in trade.”

“What's the trouble?” I asked.

“Arias too many irons in the fire. He owns a big coffee plantation in Costa Rica and does a bit of importing and exporting and has a planters' bank, and I think that between ourselves he has to meddle a bit in a financial way with the politics of his country. He is a Panamanian by birth, but lost a great deal of money when Panama—which I is to say, the Canal Zone—split off from Colombia and succeeded through the—well, let us say friendly neutrality of your Washington Government, more or less under the discipline of the big stick in the able hands of your Chief Executive of that day; your admirable paragon of not only the civic but domestic virtues, and of whose latter precepts I have the honor to be an humble emulator—quite recently to my cost.”

Allaire's laugh pealed out.

“What is the name of your second son, señor?”

“Theodore. He also is a Harvard graduate. Until quite recently, I was always a good deal of a hero worshiper. But that is immaterial. What I was about to suggest is this: My friend Arias recently deeded over that vessel to his son, a young man named Davide. Now Davide may have been endowed with some of the martial qualities of his great Biblical namesake and some few of the artistic ones of his more recent one of painting fame; but he is no trader at all, and in that sense a great disappointment to his father. He took the schooner to Boston with a cargo of coffee and cacao and other tropic products and lost money. Then he brought her back with cotton goods and hardware and lost even more. The trouble was that he would not listen to the advice of his Yankee skipper, who is a sour but sensible man named Poole.”

“What is he doing here now?” I asked. This was getting interesting.

“Waiting for his father to send him a check to get clear so that he can proceed to Puerto Limon. I have the check in my pocket.” Señor Gomez smiled.

“And what has Davide got aboard his schooner?” Allaire asked.

“He has a lot of cotton prints and ready-made dresses—bungalow aprons, he calls them—and American shoes. Also a goodish bit of cheap furniture. But there is no market. Everybody here is expecting a fuss at any moment, and Costa Rica is no better. If Davide had brought barbed wire and dynamite he might have made a fortune.”

“What is he going to do with it?” I asked.

“He is going to follow my advice and take it to Jamaica. He will lose money, but not so much, and his papa be less angry. There is no market for bungalow aprons and dancing pumps and golden-oak bedroom sets down here just now. But there may be a market very shortly for Red Cross aprons and army boots and hospital cots—and other things. Perhaps you catch my idea?”

“Yes, thanks,” said Allaire. “But even if Davide wanted to make a trade, we haven't cargo space for these bulky things.”

“You might fill up with shoes and bungalow aprons, whatever they may be, and get a decent sum of money from Davide. He knows that at this moment his papa would forgive him everything to get these munitions.”

“Have you told him about it, señor?”

“Yes, to pave the way for you. He will not cheep.”

“Does he know what they cost?”

“No. But I told him what you expected to receive. Why not pay him a call? He is over aboard now, painting a picture of the bay. If you could carry ten thousand dollars' worth of shoes and aprons, he could pay you the other ten in cash, as I would cash his draft on his father for that amount.”

“I think we had better go talk it over with Davide,” said Allaire.

XXIX

SEÑOR GOMEZ left us presently with every renewed expression of his most devoted and distinguished consideration. As his gayly colored shore boat pulled away I looked at Allaire and Allaire looked back at me.

“Ha! A rat!” I said.

“Yes; something rotten in the state of Denmark. I can't quite dope out the combination.”

“There's a choice of several. Number 1: Gomez and William may have set up a frame to get the munitions for no more an Gomez's half of the purchase price. But your recognizing William and your threat of publicity scared him off. Number 2: They may have rigged it with Davide to drive a hard bargain, in the rake-off of which they are to share. Number 3: This may be a plant to trick you into breaking your parole by loading them aboard Davide's schooner, when William would be justified in their confiscation. Number 4: They might turn round and double-cross Davide after he has purchased them.”

“And Number 5,” said Allaire: “They may be on the level and Gomez really trying to square himself for his fluke by helping me to get out even or with a little profit. William spoke last night about a man in Costa Rica who would be glad to get the stuff.”

“Well, don't let's bank on that,” I said.

“No.” Allaire dropped her pretty chin on her knuckles and reflected for a moment. “See here, Pom, I got you all into this thing, and I made up my mind last night if it flivvered I'd stand the loss.”

“You shan't stand my loss.”

“Well, we can wrangle over that when the time comes. It's not as if I had done it with the sanction and knowledge of the syndicate. I got us into it, and I now want you to give me the chance to get us out of it again.”

“Why the lone hand, Allaire?”

“Call it pride. Let me go over and talk to Davide alone, before the others come back.”

“All right, go to it. I deplore your methods, but I've got infinite confidence in your abilities.”

“Thanks, Pom, You are a good shipmate.”

She sprang to her feet, then to my astonishment stooped suddenly and dropped a kiss on my lean and weather-beaten cheek. I made a grab for her, but she evaded it.

“That's just a douceur, Pom. If I succeed, there may be a real premium. Haul the launch alongside, will you? I'll go alone.”

As usual, she had her way. I followed her through my strong binoculars as she spun over to the handsome two-master, about half a mile away. She glided alongside, when I saw a man in white clothes and Panama go to the rail and assist her aboard. Unconventional, but not inconsistent with our affair.

It was then about ten o'clock, and hot. An hour passed, and I began to get a little anxious about Allaire. Examining the two-master through my glasses, I could see no sign of either her or Davide on deck. Not so good, it seemed to me. Rich young Central Americans who have studied art in Paris and own two-masters to lose money and paint pictures aboard are not the safest custodians for uncommonly pretty girls. Still, Allaire was—well, Allaire.

A little later I was relieved to see them both go down the ladder, get into the launch and spin off ashore. It might be a pleasure jaunt and then again it might be business. Lunch time came and I ate alone, a bit sore at thought of the cool café and restaurants over on the shaded plaza. I stretched out in a hammock and took a sulky nap.

Three o'clock and nothing but heat and glare. Then our water and stores and fuel all came off her. That kept me busy for about an hour. I then discovered a couple of lighters going alongside the two-master and presently saw that she had rigged a sling and was discharging crates and bales into them, and I wondered why.

By four o'clock my peevishness at being stuck out there alone began to grow acute. I did not like to leave the boat with only Pompey and McIntosh, the latter getting restless and staring longingly at the beach. Then here came Allaire and Mrs. Fairchild and Cyril in the gig, laughing and talking gayly as if on their return from some jolly spree. Their flushed faces, especially those of Mrs. Fairchild and Allaire, made me think that somebody had been entertaining them, and I thought aright.

“Hope you've had a pleasant day of it,” I snapped.

“Time of our young lives, Pom-Pom. Sorry you couldn't have been with us. All the gang was there.”

“The next time you get liberty I know one of the gang that will be there. What do you think I am? The crocked old ship keeper?”

“Stores all aboard, sir?” Cyril asked.

“Everything's aboard. We're all ready for sea, but I suppose you've all got dates ashore tonight.”

“We've got a date, old dear, but not ashore,” Allaire said smoothingly; “about twenty miles offshore.”

I saw a sudden light.

“With Davide?”

“The same. He's charming, Pom.”

“Charmed, I should say. Has he got the money?”

“Money and everything. Let's get under way.”

“Golly,” I breathed, “I might have known you had a cartridge or two left in your belt. Then we're going to make our trade outside the limit?”

“Right-o! Who's to stop us?”

“Somebody might try, though.”

“No fear. If we've got the freedom of the port as an American yacht vouched for by a prominent citizen and the chief of the intelligence, we've certainly got the freedom to go out of it. Let's try, anyhow. Davide will not start until we are well clear, and they can't stop him.”

“What was he discharging, and why?”

“Warehousing some of his furniture until trade conditions improve. Come on, let's go.”

Nothing hindering, we proceeded to do this thing. Nothing still to hinder us, we continued on our peaceful way under power. Then as the shore line was getting dim I saw through the glasses the spars of the two-master Evangeline as she came around the point.

By this time it had become plain to me that I was the victim of a joke. I had not asked Allaire what sort of bargain she had made, feeling that it was up to her to report on it. Then, as she did not seem to think it necessary, my irritation reached a degree where I would not condescend to say, “Please put me out of my suspense.” Once or twice I caught Mrs. Fairchild's blue eyes fixed on me a little anxiously, as if she did not entirely approve of this form of torment, but evidently Allaire had extracted a promise of silence, for she held her peace.

It was a lovely afternoon, like most down there at that season, trade wind blowing freshly, and with diminishing force as the sun sank lower. Being not far off the land and sheltered by the shoal water, the sea was fairly smooth. The Evangeline appeared to have a good motor, as she held her distance, standing directly after us.

Then at sunset I suggested that we slow down and let her catch us up. There were some sailing craft in sight, but a good way off, and a steamer smoke or two, but nothing that threatened interruption. Allaire, Mrs. Fairchild and Cyril seemed in a state of suppressed excitement. Cyril avoided my close proximity, and once or twice his boyish laugh burst out as if suddenly tickled. Although sore at being treated in this kid fashion, I was glad that Allaire had let the two others into the joke, if indeed it proved the profitable joke I could not quite believe. For one thing it would promote better feeling, and for another they had too much business sense to be entirely fooled; or at least I trusted that they had.

As the short tropic twilight faded, up came the Evangeline, a splendid-looking craft. She stopped her motor and a raw-boned man whom I guessed to be Captain Poole sang out for us to come alongside. I did so with all our fenders over, when we made fast and lay there rubbing gently in the swell. A fattish young fellow with long black curling hair and a handsome if small-featured face came skipping aboard with the nimbleness of step that proclaimed him a finished dancer. Allaire, stifling her laughter, presented us. He gave me a pleasant word or two with a quick, strong clasp of the hand, then with a “Permettez, mam'selle,” took Allaire about the waist and proceeded to execute a fox trot or something around our limited quarter-deck.

I watched this performance slightly stupefied. Then, as they paused, I said, “Pretty, but is it art?”

Davide laughed.

“Excuse me, captain,” he said, “but this is the happiest day of my life. At least it would be if I did not have to part so soon with this lovely and highly efficient young lady. But we shall meet again.” He gave Allaire a look that made me want to smack him.

“Suppose for a moment or two we get down to business,” I suggested.

“Oh, business—the good old brass tacks. Thank heaven, I am finished with business. What a perfectly jolly little boat! How glad I am to have her, and to see the last of that ghastly money grubber. Papa will be pleased. Not only with the popguns but for a long time he has wanted just this sort of thing to knock about in up and down the coast.”

“What?” I cried. “Have you gone and traded ships, Allaire?”

“Why, yes, Pom. You know we both agreed that what we wanted was a good, staunch auxiliary vessel to carry out this trade idea the way we thought it could be done.”

I sank down on the cabin house. Here was barter with a big B that could stand for blight or benediction, as the case might be, or another of Allaire's fancy little bombshells. Running over, as I thought, to try to swap off a bad bet in munitions for a worse one in bungalow aprons and sponge-rubber-soled shoes and beds that were all complete but for a mattress and the other accessories, she had struck a dicker for the whole works, boats thrown in. Talk about barter!

Everybody was in the joke but me, apparently. Mrs. Fairchild was talking and laughing with Captain Poole, whom she appeared to know; which was not the half of it, as they hailed from the same locality of the Maine coast and knew all about each other. More than that, the Evangeline had been built just opposite where Mrs. Fairchild had grown up as a girl. That's apt to be the way down East from Portland.

So far as I could gather in my state of daze, everybody seemed to have some sort of line, direct or indirect, on everybody else. Poole as a boy had sailed in the coastwise schooner trade with Captain Fairchild. Cyril knew all about the Isthmus Ariases, and named them to me aside with the sort of veneration that the maitre d'hôtel of a dining car on the Chemin de Fer du Nord might name the Rothschilds. Davide told me that he knew quite a number of my own relations in Manhattan, some of whom I did not know myself.

We appeared, so far as I could gather, to be struck adrift there on a wide sea of good faith. Allaire, with the knowledge and consent of Mrs. Fairchild and Cyril, had evidently traded our little schooner, all found and provisioned, and with her contraband munitions, for the Evangeline, empty. All we had to do, apparently, was to grab our personal luggage and change cars.

But that was not quite good enough for me. I rudely interrupted this love feast by expressing the desire to be shown. This dancing on the deck and general air of good fellowship was picturesque but unconvincing. For all I knew, Allaire might have got a sick ship hoisted off on her, something war built and already soft, or with the worm in her poorly seasoned timbers.

“Let's see what we've all got out of this Jack Horner pie,” I said. “To start with, suppose we have a look at these munitions of ours. I happen to know a little about that sort of gear. While the hands are hauling out those cases we might go over the papers.”

“All the papers need is your signature as one-fourth owner,” Allaire said.

“Well, then they might need quite a lot,” I answered shortly.

We went aboard the Evangeline. Davide showed us into a handsome, roomy cabin finished in mahogany, big rooms with shore beds and a bath and showers. It appeared that the pampered youngest son, Davide, since his return from Paris with a painting prize or two, had been teasing his fond father for a yacht. He wanted a floating studio, to paint and entertain aboard. Desiring to infuse this sort of life with serious purpose, Señor Arias bought the Evangeline at a bargain in Colon and gave her to Davide.

The Evangeline had been a waif ship since sliding out of the stocks. She had been built for a two-masted schooner auxiliary seiner. The man to order her had died, and his estate had sold her at a loss to a man who sent her to Boston with a load of ice in midwinter. Looks odd, but so it does to see the iceman fetching in a block for your box with the mercury at zero. She was sold twice again before doing any more work. She was sent once to the Grand Banks codfishing, and once to the Georges after mackerel, but was too big. Then she was bought by a man getting up an expedition partly scientific, partly treasure hunting. On the strength of the former, they tried to beat their way through the Canal, but the I. C. C. could not see it that way; and lacking funds, there they stuck. The prime mover mortgaged her to Señor Arias, who six months later bought her for less than a third of her building price, put her in good condition throughout and gave her to Davide to play with. Davide carried his father's cargoes North and made a little money, then lost it and more on what he brought back on his own account. He tackled the game precisely wrong, putting his money into cargoes that declined to yield it up again.

The Evangeline had recently been rated A-1 by Lloyd appraisers, her present approximate value placed at eighteen thousand dollars. She had goods now aboard for which his receipts showed Davide to have paid seventy-five hundred dollars in Boston. A fair value for our Tinker would have been about that amount, I thought. And Allaire had paid out actually only five thousand dollars for her share of the munitions. So that a flat trade, ship for ship, with all aboard, looked pretty good. This was what Allaire had, with no great difficulty, talked Davide into.

The papers for the transfer had all been drawn the American consul and required only my signature, the official attesting of it waived. Davide's act of exchange did not specify the nature of the cargo aboard either vessel or its value, but included “all present contents of aforesaid vessels aboard them at this day and hour excepting the strictly personal effects of their respective people.”

The trade had actually been made in the consul's office, but was not valid until my signature should be affixed. I now affixed it, then suggested that the munitions be duly inspected in presence of us all. This job promised a lot of hard work and the making of a good deal of a mess below, but here again Allaire's clever foresight became apparent. She had caused several strips of the cabin deck wig to be lifted and then lightly tacked down, having anticipated the necessity of haste in getting rid of her contraband, so that under the united efforts of Captain Poole, Cyril, myself and McIntosh, with Davide skipping about and getting in the way—except when he served us cooling drinks, for it was a hot, perspiring job—we soon had the cases of arms and ammunition exposed and the tops of about a dozen lifted at random. They were splendid modern weapons—the type and source of which I think it better not to mention—and there being nothing to hinder, we loaded and fired several to test the ammunition.

“My word,” Davide cried, “but papa will be pleased!”

“Mind you don't get yourself nabbed,” I advised.

“No bloomin' fear. I trade off this lumbering ark of mine for a snappy little American yacht right here in Trujillo, where I'm known. Why should anybody suspect anything?”

“Gomez might try to hold you up,” I said.

“Not for a second. He does too much business with papa, and besides he's a good old sort.”

“But when they saw you follow us out ——”

“Sure! That's just the lovely ay yest of it. That's what you might call Miss Forsyth's smoke screen. She had me get Papa Gomez to cash my check. Well, he thinks of course that I meant to buy your munitions and put 'em aboard my schooner. Some of these fishing boats will report our confab out here. But they don't know we're swapping horses in the middle of the stream.

“Oh, you Allaire!” I breathed, as I caught the idea.

Davide laughed.

“Beware Allaire! A dangerous lady, I'll say.”

“Yes, like mosquitoes,” I “But with the difference that they hum.” I turned to Captain Poole. “Now that we've made our trade, would you be so kind as to show me our new ship

(TO BE CONCLUDED)